Bitcoin’s First Public Mining Pool Is Rebranding

The company behind Slush Pool, the first cryptocurrency mining pool to make its services publicly available, is rebranding.

The Prague-based company Braiins is perhaps less well-known than Slush Pool, one of the largest bitcoin mining pools as it makes up more than 9 percent of the cryptocurrency’s hashrate today.

Yet Braiins has been operating it since it purchased the historic mining pool six years ago. Now, Braiins is moving to make its involvement with Slush Pool more obvious, in part with a redesign of its logo and all its product websites.

Braiins creative director Luboš Buračinský told CoinDesk:

“After running and developing Slush Pool for the last six years more or less in the background, we’re going to take a more visible public position.”

With the rebrand, Braiins wants all its products to fall under one banner. “The rebranding will also unify our other products and services, including Braiins OS,” Buračinský continued.

Miners need to run what’s known as “firmware” on their mining devices to monitor the performance. Braiins OS, launched September of last year, differs from other mining firmwares because it’s open-source — it’s not closed off like other proprietary firmwares.

“If you own the hardware, you should be able to have full control of it without worrying about some ‘hidden features’,” the project announcement post explains.

In addition, Braiins plans to release several new updates to their products in the coming months. The firm is working on a new “payout” feature for the mining pool, which would allow miners to have more control of how they get paid.

Further, Braiins “replacing the CGMiner with Rust implementation” for Braiins OS, which would make “adding new hardware much easier,” according to the firm.